1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for managing profiles in a mobile communication system, and more particularly to a method for managing profiles according to a type of service provided in a mobile communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typically, billing performed in the communication system is different according to call duration time, time zone of the call duration time, area providing service within the time zone of the call duration time, telephone number of an originator, quantity of data providing service, type of service and so forth. Information on such services must be stored to perform correct billing to each subscriber to whom such services are rendered. Thus, description will be made below regarding how billing information is stored in the mobile communication system, as one example.
FIG. 1 shows a network construction for a general mobile communication system, in which various systems for storing charging information are connected with each other.
A plurality of base transceiver systems (BTSs) BTS-a to BTS-n or 10-a to 10-n perform communication with at least one mobile station (MS) located within their own areas through wireless channels. For instance, the BTS-a communicates with the mobile station 1. Further, the base transceiver systems are connected to a base station controller (BSC) 20. The BSC 20 is connected to any one network 60 selected from an Internet, a public switched telephone network (PSTN) and a public switched data network (PSDN) by means of a gateway (GW) 30 or a mobile switching center (MSC). In addition, information on subscribers or service profiles for subscribers is generally stored at a profile server 40. In the mobile communication system such as CDMA2000 1x, the profile server can be implemented as an authentication authorization and accounting (AAA) server or MSC. In the mobile communication system such as CDMA2000 1xEV-DO or CDMA2000 1xEV-D, the profile server can be implemented as all access network (AN) AAA server or the AAA server, or be incorporated into the MSC, or be implemented as another independent equipment. Also, an accounting server 50 for managing information on subscribers or information on billing related to services provided to subscribers can be to implemented as any one of the foregoing equipments. In FIG. 1, the profile server 40 and the accounting server 50 are configured to be connected with each other by means of the GW 30. However, when the accounting server 50 is used as the AN AAA server or the AAA server in reality, the profile server 40 may be either incorporated into the accounting server 50 or indirectly connected to the accounting server 50 by means of another piece of equipment. That is, when the BTSs 10-a to 10-n or BSC 20 are/is connected to the profile server 40, the profile server 40 is connected to the accounting server 50 through the GW 30, so that the accounting server 50 can get information on quality of service (QoS) stored at the profile server 40.
Even if not described herein, an IP network may be employed to connect either between the BTSs and the BSC or between the BSC and the GW. This IP network may be constructed to allow the operation performed by any one of the BTS, BSC, GW and so forth, to be done by another piece of equipment. Therefore, in the IP network, other operation and resulting information transmission as described below have only to be performed.
To this end, a subscriber profile managed by the profile server 40 may be represented as Table 1 as follows:
TABLE 1User namePasswordUser information
As can seen from Table 1, the subscriber profile is comprised of a user (or subscriber) name or identifier, a password allocated to each user and additional user information. There are two approaches for storing the subscriber profile as represented in Table 1, one for inputting it directly at the profile server 40 and the other for inputting it through another piece of equipment such as an mobile station at a remote location. In the subscriber profile as given in Table 1, both the subscriber name and the password for authenticating the subscriber name are inputted to obtain access to data for the subscriber profile, and then the subscriber profile can be either stored or updated.
A procedure performing authentication by means of the subscriber profile will be described below with reference to FIG. 1. First, when the MS 1 sets up a call, the MS 1 causes user login data stored in advance to be formed into data for transmitting through a wireless channel and then transmits the formed data to the corresponding BTS-a. The user login data include the user name and password. The BTS-a transmits the received user login data to the MSC or GW 30 through the BSC 20.
Hereinafter, description will be made on the assumption that the login data are received at the GW 30. When the GW 30 receives the login data containing the user name and password as mentioned above, the GW 30 creates an access request message (MSG) containing the received data and then transmits the generated access request MSG to the profile server 40. Then, the profile server 40 checks whether or not the user is authenticated on the basis on the transmitted data. As a result of checking, if authentication is acceptable or successful, the profile server 40 creates an access response MSG and then transmits the generated access response MSG to the GW 30 again. In this case, the GW 30 and profile server 40 generally make use of a protocol called DIAMETER or RADIUS. Both the access request MSG and the access response MSG are based on RADIUS.
On completing the authentication, a type of service demanded from the MS 1 is provided. Then, when call disconnection is demanded from the MS 1, a procedure for performing a logout and for transmitting billing information to the accounting server 50 is carried out. Hereinafter, this procedure will be described in detail. When provision of demanded service is completed, the MS 1 transmits a disconnection message for a logout to the BTS-a. As a result, the BTS-a transmits the disconnection message to the BSC 20. When the BSC 20 receives the disconnection message, the BSC 20 originates the disconnection message containing a connection time when the service is provided and then transmits the originated disconnection message to the GW 30. The GW 30 performs a procedure for a logout from the profile server 40 with respect to the MS 1, and simultaneously transmits a billing or charging message to the accounting server 50. Here, the billing message transmitted to the accounting server 50 includes information both on the connection the and on the number of packets. This billing message is generally collected when the call is disconnected.
That is to say, in general, billing is performed on the basis of a time when a subscriber makes use of provided services and of the number of packets which the subscriber transmits and receives for the time. Therefore, the accounting server 50 has a billing database provided with an identifier field for identifying a subscriber and with a subscriber billing information field for storing basic billing information on the subscriber.
Meanwhile, as it is possible to provide a data service in the mobile communication system, subscribers expect assurance of a higher quality with respect to the data service. In other words. QoS (quality of service) is differently demanded according to a provided service type or a subscriber type. For this reason, mobile communication systems have undergone much development to satisfy the demand. In this manner, when there are provided differentiated services according to QoS, the aforementioned conventional approaches encounter difficulty in performing billing according to QoS.